


An Education

by LadyRhiyana



Series: The tale of Squire!Brienne [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, Jaime Lannister's moral philosophy, Jaime is Brienne's mentor, Life Lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 00:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16294466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: In which Ser Jaime Lannister does his best to pass on important life lessons to his new squire, Brienne of Tarth. (AU)





	1. Jaime

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first venture into ASOIAF/GoT territory. Hopefully the character voices ring true. In my head, this is set in some vague time before the beginning of GoT, before John Arryn dies and everything goes to hell.

The first time Jaime hears the name Brienne of Tarth, it’s over breakfast in the gardens at the Red Keep. Bustling pages have set up a table covered with black-and-gold brocade in the morning sunshine for the King and Queen to break their fast with their immediate family: Cersei and Jaime and the children, Robert and Renly. 

Robert is already on his second cup of wine. Cersei’s face is set in a cool mask. 

Jaime wishes he were anywhere else. 

“Listen to this, brother,” Renly says, brandishing a letter. “Lord Selwyn of Tarth begs my favour for his daughter, Brienne, who wishes to find a position as a squire to some respectable knight – myself, or one of my bannermen, perhaps –” 

“His daughter?” Robert repeats, incredulous, draining his cup and waving it vaguely behind him. His squire, Jaime’s cousin Lancel, hurries over and refills it with the grace of long practice. The boy is barely competent with a sword, but he has grown skilled with a wineskin. 

“I have heard of the Maid of Tarth,” says Renly. “They say that at six and ten she is taller and stronger than most men and twice as ugly. Lord Selwyn has tried to marry her off three different times, to no avail; the last time she took her sword to the poor man and broke his collarbone and three ribs.”

Robert roars with laughter. “A fierce, ugly swordswench! Well, if she’s tall as a man and twice as ugly, she won’t do at all for you, Renly.” 

“I already have a squire,” Renly says with stiff dignity, his eyes flicking to where Loras Tyrell stands in the background beside Lancel, waiting to be of service. Unlike Jaime’s cousin, young Loras is quick and fierce and superbly skilled; in a few years, he will be one of the best swordsmen in Westeros. Though how he gained that skill while squiring for Renly, Jaime will never know. 

“No, no, it won’t do,” Robert says, shaking his head. “Can’t have highborn maids leaving their fathers’ households to play at being a squire. Gods know she won’t stay a maid for long –” He stops, and his eyes are drawn to the white cloaks of the ever-present Kingsguard, stationed discreetly out of earshot at the entrance to the gardens. 

“Wait!” Robert exclaims, bringing his fist down on the table and making the plates and goblets jump. The children flinch, and Cersei looks pained. “I have it!” He turns his gaze to Jaime. “Kingslayer, you’re in need of a squire, aren’t you? Why don’t you take this girl on? The white brothers are sworn to chastity, and you in particular are chaste as a dried up septa’s cunt. She’ll be safe enough with you.” 

Jaime smiles, razor-thin, and forces himself not to look towards Cersei. “Surely you jest, my love,” she says. “My cousin Martyn is to be Jaime’s next squire.”

“No, damn me,” Robert says, in a rollicking mood. “There’s too many bloody Lannisters infesting the court as it is. It’s time to introduce a few loyal Stormlanders! Write to this Lord Selwyn, brother,” he says, waving to Renly. “Tell him to send his daughter to King’s Landing, to be squire to Ser Jaime Lannister.” 

“Ha,” says Robert. “Let’s see if you can make a man out of the Maid of Tarth, Kingslayer.” 

Jaime grits his teeth and bows his head. “As you wish, your grace,” he says.

** 

Months later, Jaime has almost forgotten about Lord Selwyn’s letter and his new promised squire. He’s striding through the corridors of the Keep, having just completed a long shift outside the king’s chamber as Robert had loudly entertained at least five or six whores, and is in a foul and vicious temper. 

When a young page tentatively approaches him, leading the most awkward and bumbling creature he has ever seen, he is in no mood to appreciate Robert’s whims. 

Brienne of Tarth is almost as tall as he is, with hunched shoulders and lowered eyes; she’s every bit as ugly as promised, her face covered with freckles, her lips thick and wide, and her nose already twice-broken. Her only saving grace – the only thing remotely feminine about her – is a pair of extraordinary blue eyes, quickly downcast. She can’t meet his eyes, and replies to his every barbed comment in a low mumble. 

He loses interest in her immediately. 

**

A few days later – his black mood forgotten – he sees her in the practice yard for the first time. The gaggle of half-trained young boys and men training under Ser Aron Santagar, the master at arms, are no more than he expects: most are decent enough, some have promise, one or two show some real skill. One tall, powerful lad catches Jaime’s eye, all coiled strength and smooth footwork.

It’s with a sense of vague inevitability that he realizes the lad’s true identity. With a sword in her hand, she stands up straight, all her hunched-over awkwardness gone. 

“She’s quite good,” Ser Barristan Selmy says beside him. “She’s got real potential.” 

Jaime eyes the Lord Commander. “She could have all the potential in the world, and she’d still be a woman. There’s no changing that.”

“Well, whether you like it or not, she’s your squire,” Selmy says. “There’s no changing that either. Make of it what you will.” 

**


	2. Brienne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references two bits of my head canon: (a), that Jaime learned from the other Kingsguard knights when he first joined; and (b), that there is a mirrored training salle in White Sword Tower. (If there isn't, there should be.)

Her duties are not arduous. 

Brienne cleans and polishes his armour and his swords and his equipment. She looks to his horses, though the grooms in the Keep’s stables already pamper them. She helps him into his armour when he is on duty and out of it when he is done. She stands behind him at table, though he insists that she is not to pour his wine. 

She trains with the master at arms in the practice yard. There are many other squires in training, but they are all quartered in the Keep itself; she is the only one quartered in White Sword Tower. It sets her apart, only one of many such differences: if they didn’t already hate and envy her for squiring for Ser Jaime, they would hate and envy her for her sex, for her height, for her ugliness, for her skill with a blade. 

Ser Jaime only shrugs indifferently when she says that the others hate her. “What of it?” he asks. “The lion does not concern itself–”

_With the opinions of sheep._ It’s a favourite saying of his, one that he can get away with because he is Ser Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock, because he is one of the foremost swordsman in Westeros, because his sister is the Queen and his father is the richest man in all seven kingdoms. 

He is impatient of flattery and platitudes and his sharp tongue too often makes him enemies. Everything is a jest to him, and he holds nothing sacred, not honour, not chivalry, and especially not his own vows. 

**

And yet sometimes he steps into the practice yard with her. For that, she will forgive him anything. 

**

Though she had thought she could leave the tedium of lessons with a maester behind when she went off to be a squire, Ser Jaime insists that she continue her education. She is highborn, and her father’s heir; his own father had not allowed him to set foot in the practice yard until he had finished his lessons. 

And so every morning, after she had tended to Ser Jaime’s armour and equipment and horses, before she is allowed to train with horse or sword, she spends three tedious hours learning mathematics and history and geography and politics. 

_It’s the only way Father ever got anything through my head_ , Ser Jaime says lazily. 

Ser Jaime is supposed to teach her of chivalry and honour. But she does not wish to learn such things from the Kingslayer.

**

“What will you do,” he asks her one day, “when you are faced with opposing vows?” 

She considers this, but does not know what to say.

**

The other squires gain an education of a different sort in the city. Their knights take them to taverns and teach them to drink and dice and brawl; when they’re old enough they take them to brothels and pay for their first whores. 

Ser Jaime’s brother Tyrion teaches her to drink and dice, and tells her warm stories and laughs uproariously when she blushes fiery red. 

Ser Jaime does not frequent brothels. He is a knight of the Kingsguard, sworn to chastity; Brienne has never seen him with a woman, though they throw themselves at him eagerly enough. Sometimes, though, when he disappears in the small hours of the night and returns smiling and loose-limbed, she suspects he has a secret lover. But the first time she ventures to remark on it, he turns a look of such fierce threat on her that she quails before him and vows never to mention it again. 

**

Swift and agile, ruthless and strong, he tests her footwork and her balance and it’s all she can do to keep up with him. He was trained as a boy by elite masters at arms, and after he joined the Kingsguard by the greatest knights of Westeros: swift, cunning Lewyn Martell; bullish Gerald Hightower; Ser Arthur Dayne, the greatest knight of his generation. 

Whatever else he is, Ser Jaime is a superb swordsman. But it’s not only forms and attacks he teaches her; he also pounces ruthlessly on emotional weakness, and his taunting words are as much a distraction as his sword. She learns not to let him enrage her, tries desperately to hide any hurts lest he turn them mercilessly against her. 

**

One day the other squires begin to pay court to her. At first she is surprised, and then flattered – 

And then the master at arms calls her before him and tells her about the bet. 

She goes back to her tiny chamber in White Sword Tower and for the first time in long years she weeps. 

**

There is a training salle in White Sword Tower where the walls are lined with mirrors. “When you practice in here,” Ser Jaime says, “you can see all the imperfections of stance and form and footwork, and work on perfecting them –” 

“Of course,” he also says in a hateful drawl, “you can also hide away from Hunt and Mullendore and the others. I’ll give you one day, and then you will go out to face them again.”

“I can’t,” Brienne bursts out.

He gives her an unsympathetic look. “What do you care for their sniggering? You’re better than every one of them. Go out there and beat them into the ground.” 

**

And so she does.

**


End file.
